From What I've Tasted of Desire
by PrettyArbitrary
Summary: Tony had always known it would end in tears, but he'd thought he might be able to keep it from ending in fire. So much for that.


**From What I've Tasted of Desire**

I'd forgotten I'd written this. It dates from the beginning of Dark Reign, before we knew how things would go down, so it's not quite in line with what actually happened. One day I when I was rereading Frost's poem "Fire and Ice," it occurred to me how apt it was for Tony at the time. I suspect it may be Artistic, but I'm posting it on the chance it might be a good read.

I don't own Iron Man, in case you were somehow under the impression I had some authority. If I had, I assure you the comics would have taken a different direction (and a different artist).

* * *

Tony had always known it would end in tears, but he'd thought he might be able to keep it from ending in fire.

So much for that.

While Jarvis milled quietly in the background, packing, Tony stared out the window of his penthouse (status of ownership to be determined), watching smoke drift across New York City. The broken shells of gutted and ruined buildings poked out from it, here and there, in tortured metal spikes. He sympathized. "I've learned my lesson," he muttered bitterly-maybe to Jarvis. He didn't know who he was talking to. "Just let it burn." Everything he'd built and bled for-testament to his desire to help-was being dismantled around him, and it felt like a knife twisting in his chest. Everything he'd put his hand to, to help, to fix, became an escalating series of disasters. Like the weapons he'd stopped making, so long ago. He should've taken that shrapnel as an omen.

Tony had things to do. He needed to fix his armor, pack up the tools and parts he'd need. He needed to clear out his old schematics, stow the old sets where no one could get to them. Maybe he should give them to Reed for safekeeping... The thought of having to look anyone in the face right now put a shudder down his spine. He couldn't swallow the disgust on the faces of the people he'd cared about. They deserved an explanation, but what could he tell them? That he'd done it for them? Yeah, a pack of superheroes would just love to hear that.

He thought he was glad Cap hadn't lived to see this. No. He'd rather burn in hell than see Cap dead. Too bad that hadn't worked out.

He needed a drink. Oh god. His hands shook with it. Thankfully he felt too drained to move. The liquor store seemed as far away as a time when his life hadn't been a wreck. Was there a time like that? He thought there must have been. Back in the Avengers' early days, when he still felt like a hero. Maybe when Rumiko was with him. When he and Cap had put the team together again. Those had been happy times.

He realized suddenly that he hadn't thought of himself as Iron Man since all this started. Iron Man was a hero. Tony Stark was a fuck-up. The armor had been something noble, once, but when he looked at it now he only saw a tank.

He was going to have to run. He needed to prepare, to put measures in place. He wondered why he should bother. Shouldn't he just let them come for him, toss him in the prison where he'd locked up so many of his friends? It'd be a good move, right? Keep Tony Stark from doing any more damage. Let somebody else take care of things.

They'd put Norman Osborn in charge. _Norman _fucking _Osborn_. After Cap's death, the Hulk, and then the Skrulls, if you'd asked Tony how it could possibly get any worse, he'd never have thought of that. That took real imagination on the part of some sick, twisted cosmic power. It was almost enough to make him believe in God.

Osborn would kill Spider-Man. He'd wreak havoc in revenge for those stupid nanites they'd used to keep him from murdering people as he saw fit (one thing that Tony really didn't regret). He'd raze everything he could touch to the ground to pay them back for leashing him, and he'd have people tripping over themselves to thank him for it. He'd come after Tony and take the armor just because he knew how to hurt people. He'd do things with the power they'd given him that Tony could only imagine because he'd grown up around psychopaths like that.

Tony really just wanted to lie down and die. Booze, prison, death rays, smothered by hot babes, pummeled to death by Steve's ghost, he didn't really care how it went. He was pretty sure he'd fallen as far as he could, but when he hit bottom (and oh, he hoped this was the bottom), it turned out he couldn't break anymore than he already had. So here he was, begging a God he didn't believe in for the luxury of giving up, and preparing to run the hell away from Norman Osborn and whatever authorities the suits who needed a scapegoat put on Tony's tail, in hopes of saving enough pieces to put them back together after everyone else discovered what a bad idea this was. It'd all end in flames, again, but he couldn't stop trying. _God damn it, Steve, why can't I stop trying?_

Some days he really wished he'd been allowed to freeze to death down in the Bowery.

* * *

A/N: For reference, "Fire and Ice"

_Some say the world will end in fire, __  
__Some say in ice. __  
__From what I've tasted of desire __  
__I hold with those who favor fire.__  
__But if it had to perish twice, __  
__I think I know enough of hate __  
__To know that for destruction ice __  
__Is also great __  
__And would suffice.__  
_

-Robert Frost, Dec. 1920


End file.
